


Between Two Points

by TrulyCertain



Series: I like big plots and I cannot lie (Kink Meme prompts) [13]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 07:08:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1143029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrulyCertain/pseuds/TrulyCertain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aveline mourns, in her own time and her own ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between Two Points

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt:
> 
> _I know the story is about Hawke so often we don't get to see the companions full reactions to things, even on their own personal quests. So what I'm asking for is something a little more in depth that deals with them, in their times and trials._
> 
> _..._
> 
> _A further exploration of the companions and their own thoughts on the trails that they face/have faced._

He is everywhere she looks - the brave, strong man she left on a Makerforsaken dirt road between the Blight and here. The Sword, multiplied five times, a hundred times, emblazoned on breastplates that still have beating hearts underneath them. Unfair, somehow, that they should escape without pain, without the Blight seeping into their blood and their minds, and she should lose what made her human.  
  
She washed her hands in the first clean water they came to, when they were sufficiently ahead of the horde. Did it until her hands were raw. The blood is still there. She can't close the wounds she's inflicted, but perhaps, she decides, she can work on those left by others - wounds in livelihoods, in peace, in Kirkwall.  
  
She isn't one to waste good weaponry. She made sure the dagger was clean of Tainted blood, gave it to one of her guardsmen. She has no desire to know who exactly is carrying it - the further away from her it is, the less she knows, the better. She can't use it again.  
  
Wesley always wanted to make a difference. Well, this would have been the perfect place for him. Hawke says, uncharitably, that Kirkwall is broken and rotting; Aveline thinks it just needs a little work. The right men, a few cracks papered over, and maybe things can begin to heal. So she wears the armour of the guards: the plate and the hard jaw, the professional neutrality. She tempers it with mercy, but it gets the job done. She has a sword in her hand and she has a purpose, and she needs not to think, so she patrols and cuts swathes through the criminals that prey on the townspeople. This, she can do. This is stable.  
  
She knows some of the guards snigger behind her back; they think she's Fereldan and insult her for it. She supposes in a sense that's true: Ferelden will always be her home; it will always be the place where she found her heart, her first purpose. Yet that's abstract, now. She was chased out of Ferelden by the Blight, so the best she could manage was to carry some of it with her, and that piece...  
  
Ferelden was left on a Makerforsaken dirt road between the Blight and here. Her home is gone, far away and unreachable.  
  
Wesley doesn't watch her. She doesn't turn and see him sitting, waiting for her to finish sharpening her sword. Her bed is half-empty. In her quarters, there is no second pair of boots beside her own. She's forgetting what it feels like to be touched. The Templars here are a different breed - too cruel yet too familiar.  
  
She's strong - she knows she is - but not strong enough for this. Someone has to support the weight of the pain, and it has to be her. She threatens to buckle with it, and she's afraid of crumbling in front of the others; there are some things that can't be fought with sword and shield.  
  
She knows she did the right thing, but she still sees the blood on her hands. She watches him die every time she blinks.  
  
She keeps moving, stays strong and stays hopeful, but every time she pauses to catch her breath, an empty space is still close at her side.


End file.
